Enter a sonic imaginarium where hard physics meets soft synth processing. Modus is a virtual world of conceptual instruments, modelled with cutting edge physical behaviours and acoustic properties. Product licence:
Modus
Unreal instruments
Modus uses our latest research in collision modelling to connect acoustic elements together. Strings, plates, springs and rattles collide, literally, in algorithmic air to generate tones that resonate and react just like they would outside the virtual realm. These elements are combined in different ways to create three types of instruments.
Connected Strings
Each voice has up to four connected strings which can be plucked or act as resonators. The strings are connected by either rattles that give collision effects as the strings vibrate, or nonlinear springs. Physical parameters control the decay, mass and harmonic content along with individual semitone and fine tuning controls.
Strings connected to a Plate
This model has two strings connected to a plate using nonlinear connections that can either be rattles or springs. These strings are retuned on-the-fly to give 6 octaves of monophonic or duophonic sound. The plate can act as a soundboard by varying its decay, mass and fundamental frequency. These, along with the connection controls, can all be changed in real-time.
Driven Plates
A driver signal is used to excite the top plate, which is connected to the bottom plate with two nonlinear connections. This driver can be a polyphonic sawtooth or sine wave, or a multi-striking hit for percussive effects. There is also an option to use a single plate connected to ground.
Real physics with complete control
Every element in Modus’ true-to-life physical modelling engine reacts like it belongs to a real action in a real space. Where you hit the strings and plates matters, as do the position of the connections. Our next-generation collision modelling creates a huge spectrum of nonlinear behaviour, from subtle pitch glides to high energy crescendos. Modus gives you control over first, how the elements behave, and second, how they’re processed. Details of the theoretical background can be found in this technical paper.
The more you delve into the effects and modulation options available to you in Modus, the more depth you’ll find in your sound – there’s playable realism in every corner of the plugin.With two LFOs that can be assigned to certain parameters, featuring sine, sawtooth up and random shapes, and host tempo sync, alongside complete MPE-compatibility, a whole new realm of expression and augmented musical reality is waiting.
Demo tracks by Gadi Sassoon
Gadi Sassoon is a world class composer, pioneering synthesist and accomplished performer, whose experimental blend of classical and computer music has garnered wide acclaim from audiences as diverse as the United Nations, Leipzig Opera House and prime time TV. As Physical Audio’s longest running artistic partner, his vision has done much to influence the design of our instruments for the best part of a decade: he has been creating records, live performances and soundtracks using our algorithms since they were research level machine code, when the Physical Audio team was known as the Next Generation Sound Synthesis project at the University of Edinburgh. Gadi’s first solo album Multiverse was a direct result of our early research, and together we continue exploring new applications of physical modelling to composition and sound art.
Each of these tracks was created using a single preset in Modus. All of the sound is generated from instances of the preset, with minimal post-processing.
Features
– 3 configurations of physical models
– MPE-compatible
– LFO modulation
– Gain mixer with Pre-amp limiter
– High and Low-shelf EQ
– VCF with circuit-modelled drive section
– Stereo Delay
– High quality Reverb
– VST3 and AAX for Windows
– AU, VST3 and AAX Universal Binaries for macOS
Custom Tuning
New in version 1.4 of Modus is custom tuning using the Scala format, as well as variable reference A4. This allows micro-tuning of each interval in the octave from a base C, using either cents or fractions. An example tuning file is here.
The .scl tuning file should be placed in the same directory as the presets folder, which is shown at the bottom of the Info window. If a tuning file is found and loaded, it will be shown next to the Reference A control in the MIDI-MPE window.
System Requirements
macOS
– macOS High Sierra 10.13 to Sonoma 14.
– Intel or Apple Silicon processor.
Windows
– Windows 11.
– Intel or AMD processor 2011 or newer (Sandy Bridge).
Modus Tutorial
Presets playthrough
Credits
Many thanks to the following for their help in developing Modus:
Sound design
Gadi Sassoon, Alex Truscott, Francis Preve, sadà\exposadà, Lorenzo Lorenti, Daniel Morin, Francesco Gennari and Giovanni Battagliola.
Beta testing
Lionel Schmitt, Tom Mudd, Riccardo Russo and Carlos Davey